Lately, I have been giving a lot of thought to music ...my music....both the composing and playing of it ...and....where I'm going with it all and how do I feel about it...
Recently, I was asked how I composed my cello songs..did I think about words in my mind...like lyrics?.....the question got me to thinking ...how do I compose these little songs?..they seem to just happen for me.....
When I composed Zadlo's Song...I was very clueless as it was my first...I wrote a little paragraph about Zadlo and then the notes and their time values came along....the very knowledgable person who started me on this composing path told me that if I ever got stuck ...I could use this writing words technique.....It worked wonderfully for Zadlo's Song but, I never needed it again.. as I never got stuck again...but, I am prepared if I ever do :-)....
My compositions always start off with an intent....a thought....an idea....and usually feelings...an example would be my Opus song about my "adopted" penguin and his rescue and eventual release to his real world...it was like a movie with associated feelings playing in my mind....that is why I love to write a little story description about each piece ...as there are meanings at the base of each music piece I compose.....and that is exactly how I want it to be and would not do it any other way....
I explained , my newest composition, Yearning... on its page and that was all about a feeling I had when I first heard some notes from my Tango....so, that music had no picture ...just a feeling ...and I matched the music to that feeling...
I understand..but not too well...that much music is composed by math now..it is like a science..with very complex explanations that I do not understand , nor do I have any inclination to because it is a very unromantic and unemotional way to make music....Recently, I saw a Rachmaninoff quote that refers to this "analytical music"....it was beautiful and reassuring and I related to it.... no wonder his music is so beautiful...I have included it in the Quote section at the end...
I am planning my future works now....I have two in mind...one will be the visulatization technique and the other will be based on a rhythm and some visual imagining, also...that one will be ... THE ELEPHANT SHUFFLE ...and the one where I will have to do a lot of imagining will be...THE PLAYFUL ELEPHANT...then later in the year I am composing one piece with two tempos..a first, for me....a slower one and a fast one...I am excited about this , so I will share a little about it....I am planning to adopt two penguin chicks this year from SANCCOB when the orphans start in October or so..they will be named ANDANTE and ALLEGRO....it will be fun...and I love to support this very worthwhile organization...I will see a visual again for this one imagining penguin antics and attempt to match the music to them....in a few years, I hope there will be many released lovely penguins with musical names:-)..They may be released back in the wild but I will still have them in their music :-)
I have always loved beautiful sounds....and that is not saying...that I love music...there is a difference to me...I have always played what I consider beautiful music with lovely sounds and flowing melodies.....I am fortunate that I have a teacher that accepts this "quirk" ...she has always told me over our many years together that there is so much music in this world..there is no reason to play or learn something you don't like....
My goal and intent with my music compositions is to take beautiful sounds...notes...and connect them to express emotions or create a musical story ...it is my fervent hope that my sounds always create beautiful musical thoughts and listening...:-)
QUOTES:
"The new kind of music seems to create not from the heart but from the head. Its composers think rather than feel. They have not the capacity to make their works exalt - they meditate, protest, analyze, reason, calculate and brood, but they do not exalt."- Rachmaninoff
"Inspiration is an awakening, a quickening of all man's faculties,and it is manifested in all high artistic achievements."-Puccini
"Works of art make rules;
Rules do not make works of art."-Claude Debussy
"Imagination creates reality."-Richard Wagner
Note: I think this following Haydn quote fits me to a T :-)
"There was no one near to confuse me, so I was forced to become original"- Joesph Haydn
Note: This is one of my favorite quotes:
"There is only one happiness in life, that is the happiness of creating"-Frederick Delius
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